The Call of Corvids Read online

  “My queen?” her caomhnóir spoke after a few minutes.

  Lloth growled and clutched the table. Her nails filed into claws grated against the metal. “Take him back to the cell. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  The promise in her voice did little to settle the chill running along his spine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”

  ~ Mark Twain

  Lloth retrieved Bear from the cell again and again and again. Each time, Lloth drew her runes on him with black paint, chanted in dark fae and made his body contort with pain. Each time, his mind drifted to memories of his family or Chloe. Each time, Lloth finished the session by growling in frustration and cursing his name. Each time, the caomhnóir threw Bear into the cell unceremoniously and shackled him to the cold floor like a misbehaving dog. And each time, after the guards left, Chloe would use what power she could still access with the magical collar on to warm him.

  Bear was losing his grip on reality. He slipped in and out of consciousness. How many days and nights had they spent as Lloth’s prisoners? Had it been two days? Or two hundred? He didn’t know.

  “Try to use your power,” Chloe whispered.

  He flinched away from the sound of her voice. Was she even real? Or had Lloth created an illusion to trick him? To get him to open up, to become unguarded.

  “Can’t,” he said. “Must keep it hidden.”

  The heat radiating off Chloe intensified. “They won’t be back for a while. You need to embrace your power.”

  He shook his head and instantly regretted it. Pain throbbed behind his eyes and his stomach rolled. He swallowed repeatedly, forcing the stomach acid back down his throat, and waited until his vision stopped swimming.

  “You’ve drawn too much into yourself. It’s part of what’s making you sick.”

  He clenched his hands into fists. The shackles bit into raw skin. He’d thrown out his original plans to conserve energy. He’d tried to fight back. He’d struggled against the guards. He tried to get away. He even tried to get them to kill him—anything to avoid the pain she planned.

  “Trust me,” Chloe whispered.

  “Are you real?”

  The heat of her magic intensified in answer. Of course, she was real. Lloth couldn’t imitate sincere warmth like this.

  He shut his eyes and opened the gates his power hid behind. Lloth had taken his ring, but he didn’t need it to protect his magic. Every time Lloth had made a grab for his power, he’d retreated farther into himself—farther than he’d ever pulled his magic back before.

  He let his essence trickle out, like a new stream running through drought-ridden soil, the magic soaked into each crack and crevice. The energy vibrating in his cells soothed the chafed feeling from his sessions with Lloth and acted like a balm to the throbbing pain. He let out more and more, until his body became flooded with power, every cell soaked, his skin and soul drenched.

  “Beautiful,” Chloe said.

  Bear let the magic well inside and tilted his head back. In a sudden burst, he made a call—the call of corvids. He knew no one would answer him. Not here. Not locked in the dungeons and sequestered away within an intricate fortress.

  Energy pinged against his.

  Bear straightened.

  What in the Underworld?

  More energy pinged.

  Ravens, crows, magpies. So many corvids.

  Warmth spread across his chest. The birds couldn’t come to him, but they answered his call with their own magic to comfort him.

  My pretties, he told them. Thank you.

  Something clicked at the end of the hall.

  Bear clammed up and snuffed out his power. His muscles ached and his heart whined at the sudden loss, but he couldn’t risk the guards witnessing his magic or Lloth detecting it.

  The clicking drew closer. The dungeon was too dark for him to see well past the bars of the cell, but the clicking was too quiet to come from one of Lloth’s heavy-footed guards.

  He straightened into a sitting position and leaned forward.

  Tasha hopped into view. An ordinary raven, sleek and black and perfect in every way. Such a silly thing to want to cry over, yet, emotion welled behind his eyes.

  “Hey, girl.”

  The bird held a piece of bread in its beak.

  “Persistent little thing,” Chloe said. “She must’ve snuck past the guard.”

  “Hey, Tasha.” Bear smiled at the bird. His voice was scratchy and raw from all the screaming. “You found me. Again. How’d you get in here?”

  The bird cocked her head at him, poked her beak through the bars and dropped the bread into the cell. She sent images of him eating.

  “Thank you,” Bear said. “You’re such a sweet thing. But you shouldn’t be here.”

  She sent him a feeling of warmth. He didn’t understand at first, she usually communicated with images. It took him a moment to realize she was sending him her love. His eyes stung.

  “Oh, you charmer.” He sent her back the warm feeling he always got in his chest when he thought about her.

  Tasha clicked happily and hopped up and down.

  “I think I might be jealous,” Chloe said.

  Tasha clicked at her.

  “You naughty thing.” His words made her click even more, a black ball of excitement.

  The door slammed open at the end of the hall. Heavy footsteps pounded against the stone floor. Joy quickly curdled into dread. Bear’s stomach churned. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Get out of here,” Bear hissed and waved his hands frantically at Tasha. She couldn’t be caught, too. “Go!”

  The raven croaked and launched into the air—right into the gauntlet covered hand of Lloth’s caomhnóir. The warrior closed his hand around the struggling Tasha while carrying a plate of food in his other hand.

  Bear stopped breathing.

  He’d beg if he thought it would help. But he couldn’t let the guard know Tasha meant anything to him. She might have a chance if the asshole believed she was just another bird.

  His stomach twisted tighter.

  Lloth’s caomhnóir studied the raven in his grip. He tossed the food onto the floor and kicked it into Bear’s cell without looking. The metal plate clattered along the concrete, spilling the meager portion of rice all over.

  Tasha continued to struggle, flapping her wings and scratching at the warrior’s armour with her talons. Beady eyes flicked to Bear, begging for help.

  “Ah.” The caomhnóir leaned toward the bird.

  The raven tried to peck at his face.

  He responded with a cruel smile, holding the bird far enough away to avoid contact. “A traitor.”

  He finally turned to Bear, his smile spreading. “This is what we do to traitors.”

  “No!” Bear lurched forward. The shackles clanked and held him in place. “Please, no.” He strained toward Tasha. He thrashed against the restraints. His girl. His shadow. “I’ll do anything. Please. Don’t do this. I’ll do what you want.”

  “You’ll do what we want anyway.” The caomhnóir clenched his fist and used his thumb to break Tasha’s neck. Bones snapped, her head bent at an awkward angle.

  “Nooooooo!” The tension knotted in his gut released into a wave of nausea. Bear slumped where he sat. He watched helplessly as the guard tossed the lifeless body into the cell. Tasha flopped against the cold stone floor, falling in a pile of scattered rice.

  “Tasha,” Bear whispered. Something inside him broke.

  The caomhnóir chuckled and walked away, his footsteps growing lighter and more distant with each step.

  Bear crumpled forward, his face a few feet away from the Tasha. Her last moments were filled with fear and confusion, wondering why he didn’t help.

  He couldn’t save her.

  He couldn’t even hold her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Chloe whispered, voice cracking.

  He heard her words and felt the h
eat of her magic against his skin, her way of trying to comfort him. But inside, he felt nothing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “The loss is immeasurable, but so is the love left behind.”

  ~ Unknown

  Bear woke up with his bruised face smushed against cold concrete. How long had he been like this? How long had Lloth held him in the dungeons? Beating him? Drawing on him like some psychotic street performer? Whispering words of magic and getting angry when he didn’t respond the way she wanted. She seemed to gain new motivation since Tasha...Since Tasha.

  Each night, or day, or hour, Lloth had her guards throw him back in this prison cell, disgusted and angry.

  Bear may have lost track of time and space, but he’d never forget the soothing words from Chloe. Too incoherent to reply, he relished the words of encouragement. He clung to words speaking of respect, pride and love, though the last emotion didn’t quite make sense. How could she love him? A thief. A coward. A talentless hack. And now, a prisoner. A man so weak, he lost all sense of himself when the big bad guard killed a bird.

  His stomach sunk. Tasha wasn’t just a bird. She was his friend and constant companion, and had been for years. Even when everything else around him turned to shit, she was always there.

  The energy of the Underworld rolled over him and strummed the runes covering his skin. Lloth had drawn different runes on him this time and though he felt nothing change during her babbling—pain was pain—she’d cackled with glee when the torture session ended. Frankly, he was beginning to think this Corvid Queen wasn’t mentally stable.

  Chloe moaned beside him and rolled over. She hadn’t been beaten like him but sleeping on the cold stone floor with minimal food, listening to him suffer and being given no guarantee of a future took its own toll on her as well. They must’ve dragged her out at some point as well because she now had runes drawn on her, too. They looked different than his, but Bear wasn’t an expert on runes.

  He turned toward her. They’d allowed them to stay in the same cell the entire time despite the neighbouring ones appearing empty, but they’d chained them so they couldn’t touch. Why had they done that? Some sick form of torture?

  Bear’s shackles clinked against the stone floor and prevented him from reaching out. Bear wasn’t a wordsmith. He didn’t spout pretty poetry and express his feelings well. Or at all. But he wanted to hold her, to soothe away the pain etched on her face like her words had comforted him. For the first time since Lloth’s caomhnóir killed Tasha, he could think, and hopefully speak, clearly.

  He looked around and discovered someone had removed Tasha’s body—probably chucking her out like unwanted waste. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He needed to keep a clear head.

  Chloe struggled to sit up. She shuffled around on her butt to face him. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better. This is the first time you’ve sat up in a while.”

  “You must think I’m weak.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Tasha.” His mouth stumbled over the name.

  She narrowed her eyes and balled her hands into fists. “That man is vile and cruel. He lacks any empathy or compassion. I don’t think you’re weak for having a heart. I cried for that sweet thing, too.”

  Bear bowed his head. He had been so lost in his own pain and grief he hadn’t noticed hers. He really was a selfish jerk. He kept finding reasons for pushing Chloe away and she’d done nothing to deserve it. If she’d killed him in his apartment and ran, she wouldn’t even be here.

  “Why?” Bear croaked, his voice raw from screaming. “Why didn’t you escape?”

  Silence answered him. Bound by thick metal and imprisoned somewhere in the Underworld in Lloth’s dungeon, he had nowhere to go. He waited.

  “I was drawn to you,” she muttered after a long uncomfortable silence.

  “I could have sold you out. I could’ve finished the job and handed you over. You had no way of knowing what I’d do or what I was capable of. You didn’t know me. Why risk it?”

  She shrugged and looked away. “It’s been a long time, Pretty Boy, since I’ve been drawn to anything. The risk was worth the prize.”

  He swallowed a lump in his throat. “So, it was real?”

  She smiled, sadness and pain still pulling at her features. “It is real, yes. And mutual as I’ve tried to tell you often enough.”

  He sighed, some tension releasing from his body despite their circumstances. At least he made the right decision to open the box and not to hand Chloe over to the dark fae lord. If he’d refused to meet with the client...If the job had gone to someone else...

  Ice flowed through his veins. He didn’t like those thoughts or the feelings, they invoked. It hadn’t happened that way so no point in dwelling on the possible past.

  “What does she want with you?” he asked. “What do those runes do?”

  “She wants what all fae want. More power.” Chloe glanced down at the runes on her arms. “And I suspect revenge.”

  “Did you steal her man?”

  She shook her head. “Her black shriveled heart got hurt and she believes I can give her the power to get back at the person she feels wronged her.”

  Bear grunted. Not all fae wanted power. At least he didn’t. Not anymore. Since taking this job, he’d realized power wouldn’t fill the hole he’d dug in his own soul from insecurities. When he looked at his own death in the cold, emotionless eyes of the dark fae queen and her sidekick, all he thought about was his family. And Chloe.

  “I’m more worried about why she wants you,” Chloe said, nodding at his chest.

  “Do you know what they are?” The runes itched his skin and if his hands hadn’t been bound, he would’ve rubbed his skin raw trying to get them off the second the guards left him.

  “Yes.”

  He waited.

  She glanced away and bit her lip.

  “I’d rather know, Chloe.”

  She nodded and turned back to him. “They link your magic with hers. It’s like an anam cara, but a forced defiled version of the bond.”

  “What the fuck is an anam cara?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not right now. We don’t have time to get into that. What you need to know is she’s forged a connection with you, so she can force you to access your power.”

  That didn’t sound good. “She’s going to make me do bad things?”

  “Yes, but...she couldn’t make a true bond. You had to be willing for that, or at least compliant, and you fought her off.” Something close to pride flashed across her expression. “That’s why she went with this spell. It’s not as good though. She can push you to use your powers and try to direct you.” Chloe swallowed. “But she can’t—”

  The metal door to the dungeon wrenched open and guards walked down the hall toward them, their heavy armoured boots hitting the cold stones. The guards stopped in front of Bear. Cold dark eyes of the Underworld appraised him.

  Lloth’s caomhnóir stepped forward. “It’s time.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Light travels faster than sound. That’s why some folks appear bright until they speak.”

  ~ Gary Apple

  Bear stumbled forward, unable to see a thing with the stupid black cloth bag over his head. The energy inside him pulsed stronger and stronger with each step, confirming he headed toward something, but he wasn’t sure what. Another one of Lloth’s torture sessions? Her big reveal of her master plan? The possibility of escape? This time was different than the other times they’d hauled him from the cell. This time he had the hood on, and they’d brought Chloe along. Dread twisted his gut at the possibilities.

  He didn’t want to become separated from Chloe. Whatever they faced, he wanted to face it together.

  Hinges creaked ahead and fresh ocean air washed over him. The guards ushered him forward, their feet shuffling against the stone flooring. Red moonlight brightened the inside of the black hood. Ocean waves crashed nearby, and an overwhelming sen
sation of corvid energy hit him like a body shot. Lloth’s now familiar power wound around him like a nauseating illness, but more corvid magic danced in the air. There must be hundreds of birds nearby, he sensed them with his inner eye and itched to call to them. But the most potent source of magic he felt in the room, the one he was most drawn to, was Raven’s.

  His twin sister was here.

  He’d know the signature of her dark energy anywhere. It brushed against his own, strengthening his power as he drew closer. They stopped him beside Chloe, her floral scent comforting, though the distance between them was still too far.

  What the fuck was his sister doing here? The only crime she’d ever committed in life was dating an epic douchebag years ago.

  “Chloe.” A man swore in a deep rumbling voice.

  Bear stiffened. Who was that?

  “You would use absolute light to control him?” his sister said. What was she talking about? Light couldn’t control him.

  “The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.” Lloth’s voice echoed in the room.

  They sounded as if they spoke in riddles. Was any of this supposed to make sense?

  Bear focused less on their words and tried to gather information on their surroundings. They must be in a large space and they weren’t alone. Murmurings and mutterings of other people filled in the background sound.

  “She cannot control Cole, she empowers him,” Lloth continued. “The only reason Camhanaich doesn’t rule this realm is because he chose not to, and it was my price for helping him. Now, I will harness his power and bolster my own claim.”

  Well, fuck. This wasn’t about him at all. Who in the Underworld was Cole? Why had Lloth brought them to this show? What did she plan? More psychological torture? His mind reeled and he missed some of what was said.

  Someone growled and boots slapped the stone flooring toward them. Who? What did they plan to do?

  “Uh, uh, uh.” Lloth scolded.

  Chloe sucked in a breath, and without seeing, he knew Lloth had done something to her using magic. The power buzzed in the air. Those runes. They must allow Lloth to hurt her in some way.